Got up bright and early Sunday morning, peeled spuds and cut onions and made corned beef hash, bacon and eggs for RockStar, Hobbit, Scout and Parker, then we drove down to Wild Waves where I got to play Daddy all day while the boys went on all the rides and the water slides.

RockStar and I went and I ate hot dog #4 (a corn dog - note that I've eaten more hot dogs in the past 24 hours than I have in the year prior to this weekend ...) and looked at the upside-down-rollercoaster (dubbed, "The Whirling Barf-o-tron of Death) and we decided that Wild Waves has, "... honed to a fine art the technique of separating daddies from their money and boys from their lunches."

The tube slides involve dashing across to grab a tube, then hiking the tube up 10-12 flights of stairs, then a 1 minute tube ride, then repeating ... my thighs got quite a workout.  My skin feels semi-poached from all the Chlorine, and I'm slightly sun-baked despite the SPF 65 sunblock ... which is to say I had a great time.

RockStar spent the entire weekend and was INCREDIBLY helpful and quite a good sport about the whole weekend.  Friday night, I did "work from home" stuff while she bagged a nap and Hobbit and Scout were off dancing at the Cuff.  We tucked into bed around midnight (as Hobbit and Scot were getting home) and I woke up at 7:00am.  I did more work on the project (C++ and Windows development, such a geek ...) and then RockStar and I went shopping for party supplies.  First stop was the bike shop where we got new tires for her inherited, '60s vintage, John Deere 5 speed bike.  The bike had original tires and tubes on it. Because the valve stems had rusted shut, I had to stick my knife blade through the tires to get them to deflate and use a tire iron to strip them from the rims wherethey had cemented themselves.

I showed her how to install a tire/tube so that she can fix a flat.  We still need to do a "how to patch a tire" class and explain about "carry a spare inner tube - patch the punctured one and put on the fresh tube.  By the time that you need the patched tube, the glue on the patch will be dry.

The bike wouldn't shift, so I asked the mechanic to look at it - we both puzzled for a few minutes until he pointed out that someone had clamped the frame mounted tire pump *over* the shift cable.  Once we removed the clamp, the shift cable moved and the bike could be shifted for 4 gears.  The mechanic gave me a new shift cable and I replaced the shift cable which meant that all 5 gears could be shifted - yay!  Spokes could stand a bit of tuning and brakepads need replacing, but RockStar now had a nice, vintage, 5 speed bike.

She asked the mechanic about doing STP (Seattle to Portland) and he opined that, while she *could* do STP on this bike, she really would not *want* to do STP on this bike.  I opined that if she could do a 30-40 mile ride on this bike, we could consider upgrading to an STP-quality bike.  (Falls in the category of, "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...")

We then headed to Costco for a bit of shopping and I realized that I was starving - a cup of black coffee and an oatmeal cookie do not a breakfast make.  Lunch was acquired - Costco dog #1.  We picked up the ice cream cake from B&R and RockStar got a smiley face balloon to mark the driveway and we headed home.  I grabbed a 40 minute "power nap" before guests arrives, then got my mise en place together to drive the grill.  6 burgers, 15 hot dogs, 3 orders of fish later, I shut down the grill and joined the party in progress and ate Costco dog #2 and #3.  A good time was had by all and people started heading home around 9-ish.  We had a bout a half-dozen hanging out, I made a pair of wrist bands for Shana, a Sam Browne belt for Scout and a bondage belt for Henry, who has been letting me use his commercial account at our local leather store.

Biking home last night, we stopped at Baskin and Robbins to order Hobbit's birthday cake - Cherry Jubilee ice cream and chocolate cake - will be quite tasty at the party on Saturday.  A trip to Costco is in the works for tomorrow morning to get party supplies, Saturday afternoon is Hobbit's birthday party and Sunday - all day at Wild Waves!

We attended Rich's NW LeatherSir kink fundraiser last night - I brought a big bag of toys to administer floggings, spankings, canings and croppings, plus some rope to do bondage work.  I warmed up the crowd by doing some basic rope bondage - tied a red 8mm chest harness around Truman (NW Leatherboy '08) before he went off to sell raffle tickets, then did a Japanese rope dress around Ty (Wa Ms Leather's better half) and sent her off into the crowd to drum up some business. 

Alas, no business for tying people up for fundraising purposes, so I tied up Angie (our current Wa State Ms Leather) and did a chest harness that gave her some killer cleavage.  As we started, she told me, "this is my first time ever getting tied up."  (I'll have to give her a gray hanky to flag right pocket next time I see her ...)

Hobbit started to get tired, so we left around 11pm - I was a bad bondage top and left Angie tied up :)  I got a note from her this morning that she's really liking that 30' piece of hemp rope and I may not see it again for a while ...

RoughTrade came over to play yesterday.  He'd asked what "strapping" meant earlier in the week and I gave him a demonstration - he watched while I cut a 4' long, 1&1/4" strap from a thick (10-12oz) hide of black latigo, then I spent the afternoon using it on him in various ways.  After we were done, I trimmed the end, attached a buckle, sized it and then presented him with a belt as a memento of our afternoon together. 

IH came over around 1pm Sunday and we got to do a long-awaited car wash scene - he emailed me back in January and asked me if I was interested in doing objectification play - he wanted to be a shaving mug for my soap while I shaved.  We discussed it and one of the other things that he wanted to do was get washed like a car. 

He brought over 2 bags full of car care products - brushes, wash mitts, carnuba-wax-soap, floor matt cleaner.  The weather was nice - sunny and the low 70s.

I needed to wash the Miata anyway, so ...

IH stripped down and got onto hands and knees behind the Miata.  I added soap, filled up the wash bucket then rinsed IH and the Miata down with the hose.  I used the last of the warm water from the hose on IH and then we were down to the cold water for washing ...

MB helped out - got the shop vac out of the garage and used it to vacuum the floor mats in the car and then he vacuumed IH.  We washed, vacuumed, washed windows, polished wheels, used Armor All, floor mat spray cleaner, window cleaner ...

Near the end, I got out the chrome polish, glopped some onto a washrag, smeared it around, then polished IH's piercings with it - he's got a very large gauge PA CBR that I was able to treat as a chrome trailer hitch.

I had some initial trepidation about how I was going to approach washing IH like a car, but after about ten minutes, MB and I had a good rhythm going and the whole scene just flowed.  I was able to "self-supervising for safety"  without overriding my focus on the tasks at hand - in short order I was thiking of IH as an object.

After a final rinse, we gathered around IH in the middle of the lawn where (before we started) I'd spread out a couple of blankets so they would warm in the sun - the water was quite cold.  We talked for about 45 minutes.  MB's been in the leather community about a year and IH was one of the contest judges when I ran for Seattle Daddy in '03 so it was a great opportunity to share experiences among three "generations" of leatherfolk.  IH has been a mentor and confidant to many of the transmen in Seattle, so M got to share some of that knowledge.  IH and I both got to hear MB's perspective on moving into the community and how some things have changed for newcomers (and other things have stayed the same ...) 

The situation had me contemplating the intricacies of my position between the three of us - IH is a top in the community, senior to me, who bottoms to objectification to only a few people.  I was quite flattered that, after knowing me for nearly 7 years, he chose me to help carry out one of his long-time fantasies.  Mentoring MB and guiding him in co-topping a scene that was well beyond the ordinary.

 MB's spent the last year in the San Francisco scene and we talked about the differences between Seattle and San Francisco leather scenes and the east coast/west coast leather scenes. 

East coast is more urban and space constrained than west coast, so their play activities and styles take up less space and are mostly indoors.  They do more role playing and adhere to more strict customs, courtesies and protocols.  Because east coast cities (and San Francisco) have fairly high population density, they can support self-segregation within communities, e.g. there are enough people to form viable groups dedicated to very specific activities.

Seattle has a fairly large population that is geographically remote - the nearest major cities are Portlant, OR and Vancouver BC (3 hours drive away.)  This means that our kink communities can't afford to do a lot of self-segregating - we all share play spaces and events.  The result is a cross-pollination between the groups.  The leathermen here have picked up bondage from the (primarily het) Shibari crowd and blood play from the leather dykes and (I'd like to think) that our het players have picked up a more relaxed attitude to mixing sex and play from leathermen. 

Players in urban areas don't have the space to do an outdoor car wash scene - here in Seattle, it's not that difficult.  The ready availability of large, private spaces, coupled with the free exchange of ideas across different groups, gives us the opportunity to experiment with play and play styles that people in other parts of the country can't contemplate.
 

Fun night - J's 22nd birthday party and a fun crew at Crowbar.  I got saddled with EC duties, but had a great time chatting with people while I watched the crowd.  Next month, I swear I'm going to caution-tape off an area by the front and put up a sign and that reads, "If you're wearing white tennis shoes, please stay in this area."  Something to keep the novices from wandering into areas where they'll get into trouble.

Every month, the "introduction to CSPC" tour group comes through and we joke with the facilitator, "We get to keep one of them!"  Last night, a cute, polo shirt clad straight boy came into Crowbar.  We chatted for a bit and I got to give him his first flogging.  He left his shirt and jeans on, so I was able to hit him much harder than if I was striking bare skin - I make a lot of noise flogging him - several people noticed the noise and the amount of impact I was delivering and were impressed.

Interesting to note that the crowd skews toward the intellectual - we had an MIT Grad student and a Reed undergrad in the crowd, and last month we had a Chemistry PhD among the group.  I had a fun time chatting with the Reedie and, absent business cards, gave him a 12Ga needle in its package with my email address written on it.

Seattle had a major windstorm the night of December 14th, 2006, and at around 11:45pm, two trees slammed through the roof of our house - one 85' and one 120' tall.  We spent nearly 2 years getting the house rebuilt/remodelled.  In the 5 years prior, we had done 4 half-marathons, STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride, 205 miles in 2 days) twice, Hobbit did the Danskin triathlon twice, and we routinely did 30 mile bike rides after work during the summer, went rock climbing and did a bunch of athletic stuff.

Because of all the construction work, moving into a "temporary" apartment for 6 months, moving back into the house, Hobbit's winning IMsL, we have done no major athletic events for the past two years.

A few years ago, we spent two weeks in Hawaii for Henry and Leilani's wedding.  We spent the first week on the island of Hawaii, on the Kona side.  We had a condo that was 1.5 miles from the start of the annual Kona Ironman Triathlon.  Every morning, we went running past the sign, and we had a lot of company at 6:30am ... as it turned out, we had arrived during the week leading up to the triathlon and our last day on the island was the day of the race.  We got up, had an early breakfast and watched the start of the race.  We stopped by the finish line that afternoon and watched the first person cross the finish line.

People who finish an Ironman triathlon get an "M Dot" tattoo - the Ironman logo.  Hobbit and I both decided that, if we ever complete a full Ironman triathlon, that we would get our first tattoo - the M Dot. 

Last week, I took an important first step toward that goal - I signed up for the Lake Stevens Half-Ironman Triathlon that's coming up in August.  The half-ironman is a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and a 13.1 mile run - all in 8 hours.  My plan is 1 hour for swim, 4 hours for bike and 3 hours for run.  I started training for it last week - 3/4 mile swim on Tuesday night after work, Wednesday, talked with a triathlete coworker who has done the course before and got some good tips, plus a pointer to a dietician, a 3 mile run around campus on Thursday evening ...

OI awoke Friday morning with a painfully swollen big toe and thought, "Uh, oh ..."  Five years ago, I had gotten badly dehydrated and had an attack of Gout that lasted for nearly a week.  Hobbit teased me that week - "You're sitting in your 19th century chair, nursing your 19th century disease."

By Friday afternoon, I was certain that it was gout again.  I stopped eating meat, started drinking a LOT of water, and did my best to "wash it out."  My foot kept swelling all weekend.  I tried ibuprofen, Naproxen but nothing worked.  At 4am on Monday, I woke up in excruciating pain and called the consulting nurse for Evergreen Medical Center.  She directed me to the Emergency Room.

I was dreading waking Hobbit at 4:30am, but she was immediately sympathetic and very helpful.  She helped get me into the car and off to the hospital.  Side note: 5am is a great time to be seen in the emergency room - we were in and out in 45 minutes.

We arrived at the hospital and my foot was so painful and swollen that I has to ask for a wheelchair.  Hobbit rolled me around the hospital, I got examined, they gave me antiinflammatories and oxycodone and sent me home.  Hobbit was really great at getting me up the stairs and tucked into bed at 7:30am.

I'm staying home from work today because I'm, "hopped up on goofballs."  Hoping to be back at work o nTue or Wed and able to do some running/swimming by the end of the week.

I started getting a cold on Tuesday, worked from home on Wed and Thu.  Iain reminded me about the Sam Brown Belt that he'd paid for in November (I was mortified at my memory lapse - made it for him out of industrial strength 12 oz belt leather) and dropped it into H's luggage to get hand delivered this weekend.  It's 1.25" width 12oz leather and it would be overkill on some men, but Iain's big enough that it's going to look awesome on him.

H headed out to Detroit for a contest at 2am on Fri morning, returning on Monday afternoon.  Did an awesome job of sneaking out of bed, getting dressed and loading up stuff - I slept through everything and woke up (briefly) for a smooch goodbye at 2:30am and went right back to sleep. 

A lot of congestion from the cold made it hard to breathe/sleep, so I woke up at 6:30am Friday morning and was into work by 8pm.  Meetings, wrote some code, headed home around 7pm.  Made rice pudding and shortbread cookie dough, puttered around on the computer, then picked up RockStar from work at midnight.  Had an excellent night together, fell asleep around 1:30am.  I woke up around 9am with the residue of the cold still clogging my lungs - I didn't sleep well because it makes it hard to breathe.  I got up, puttered around the house, worked on a leather corset for a friend, made apple muffins for breakfast.  RockStar woke up around 11am (needed the sleep) and we had breakfast, fed the herd, then geared up and headed off to Marymoor's climbing rock!

I hadn't worked out in a while, so wasn't able to do some of the stuff that I used to be able to do.  Demonstrated how to do a fist jam, pointed out how to do a traverse on the easy wall, was able to do a traverse on the overhanging wall (made me feel a bit better) and watch RockStar make like a monkey all over everything.  Next time I bring a rope and demo how to do lead climbing.  The cold was making me tired, so we headed home, a snack, a nap and then it was evening and time to take RockStar home.  But, en-route, a trip to Frye's to pick up a Webcam for LLC.  We had fun touring through Fryes.  One unhelpful salesguy, got the WebCam, RockStar was like an 8 year old at Christmas looking through the console gaming stuff.  After about 30 minutes, I started to calorie bonk and get out-of-sorts - MUST ... FEED ... NOW ...  A mexican dinner (with Karaoke going on in the bar - both of us were groaning at the ruthless slaughter of innocent songs in the next room) and then I drove RockStar down to Puyallup.  On my way home, I realized that the cold is *not* over and I probably overdid my Saturday.  I got a good night's sleep last night and the only thing that I've got going today is a GLPW BoD meeting today at Noon and two leather gear fittings this afternoon.

Also woke up to two text messages ... ON PLANE TO CHICAGO followed by ON PLANE TO SEATTLE - FIRST CLASS UPGRADE.

H is coming home a day early!

Butch-boi.com in-the-house!  A and C came up from San Francisco for the weekend - arrived at 1am on Friday morning.  Tucked them into bed downstairs, then went back to bed.  Friday AM, sent H off to Chicago.  We had to write our mid-year-review at work but they gave us beer afterwards.  J and I did a short workout and then went two-stepping at the Cuff, unfortunately, they were doing a lot of line dances.  Came home at 10:30, played a bit then went to bed.  As it turned out, A and C were exhausted playing tourist in Seattle, so they only lasted until 9-ish at Bang for the Buck, so they were home and in bed by the time we arrived.

Saturday morning, I got myself coffee, then made a pot of coffee and loaded it and two cups on the silver serving tray and took it down to them (to great amusement.)  We had breakfast, then drove out to Cedarwind Farms and got a dozen bales of hay.  A fast lunch followed, then back home to tidy the house and a quick nap.  At 6, we started the party.

Got an all-too-brief cuddle session with Rockstar, then got interrupted by my host duties. 

C and I did a fun military interrogation scene (I got to play an out-of-control Blackwater contractor, C got to be a hapless Air Force pilot.)  A gave me a list of 20 questions, 10 of which had answers.  One of them, "What's your zip code?" had the wrong answer, so C was in a tight spot - the answer that the interrogator wanted was not an answer that C was prepared to give - a bit of an impasse.  Bruises the next morning were quite ample.

A, C and Q had a big wrestling/cuddle pile going, which was fun to watch, then I wandered off to where M and K were playing with S.  I rigged up some ankle cuffs and got J's ankles spread apart and suspended and started in on some thigh/ass/cbt caning.  M and K joined in, and I let them take over while I said goodbye to RockStar.  I finished my goodbyes and was walking back when I heard a bloodcurcling scream from J - I walked around the corner and joined M, K and S as they were cuddling and untying J - one of the cane strokes went 1/2 inch in the wrong direction and struck a VERY delicate portion of J's anatomy.  M later said, "You walked in and the expression on your face was, 'Oh, shit, I left J alone with M and K!'"

We were all in bed and asleep by midnight, congratulating ourselves for starting our party at 6pm instead of 9pm and finishing at midnight and not 3am.

Sunday, we had morning coffee, then unloaded the 12 bales of hay - the wagon was broken, so we carried most of the bales up the hill by hand.  Q, J and I were able to hoist them over our shoulders and carry them up the hill - I joked that Sunday was my shoulders, back and thighs day.  After the exercise, a big lunch and everyone headed home.

I fired up the truck and went to help RockStar move - a bedframe, two bookcases, and some miscellaneous stuff.  I was expecting a major truckload of stuff, but everything fit in the bed of the truck without sticking up at all - no need to tie it down.  Had a nice ravioli dinner in Puyallup, then headed home afterwards.  Spent about an hour working on a leather corset for K - it's going to look fabulous, it's just VERY labor intensive.

H gets home tonight - looking forward to hanging out in bed and watching TV with the boy.